Hamas to hold 'resistance not terrorist' social media campaign

Hamas will launch a social media campaign on Friday, aimed at dispelling what it says is misinformation about its activities.

From tomorrow, the group said that it will begin answering questions from the public using the #AskHamas hashtag.

"The campaign is aimed at rejecting the labelling of the Palestinian resistance as 'terrorists'," Hamas’s media coordinator Taher al-Nounou told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

Nounou said the campaign would primarily target Western audiences, especially in the EU, in hopes of encouraging the EU to remove Hamas from its list of "terrorist organisations".

He added that Hamas members – including senior leaders – will all take to the net to answer #AskHamas questions.

Even before the campaign, the hashtag reached more than 170,000 accounts, according to Tweet analysis site Tweetreach.

The vast majority of the tweets, however, appeared to be either negative or sarcastic and few genuine questions were asked, suggesting that the campaign could be in for a rocky start.